Review: Urban Trial Playground (Nintendo Switch)

Review: Urban Trial Playground (Nintendo Switch)

Urban Trial Playground is a physics-based 2.5D bike stunt game in the vein of the Trials series. You go from point A to point B through an obstacle-course while going as fast as possible or doing as many tricks as possible to earn high scores and receive in-game currency, which can be used to modify your bike and buy aesthetics. Unfortunately, there isn’t a whole lot of depth to this, and the game is prone to physics-goofs and crashing.

To its credit, the game feels pretty good to play. The controls are responsive and there’s real weight to the direction you shift your bike. It’s pretty addictive and makes for a nice distraction when waiting on the bus. There are 25 different levels, but they all fit the themes: suburbs, the city, or a beach. The art style is generic and it can sometimes be difficult to tell if you’ve already played a level. You’ll be seeing the same levels multiple times too, as they are recycled for different missions.

The in-game shop lets you customize your bike with different parts that affect the bike’s performance, as well as different decals to change its appearance. There aren’t a whole lot of either to buy though, and the bike parts enhance your bike in a linear progression. You can also buy clothes for either of the two playable characters to wear, but you can’t actually change their physical attributes. Forcing the player into one of two set characters in a game like this only really limits the customization options. It also gets aggravating hearing the two spout the same few throwaway lines every time you pull off a stunt.

There are a total of four tricks in this game: front flips, back flips, wheelies, and stoppies. Doing a score attack mission on one of the 25 levels is going to consist of flipping in various directions when you’re in the air and trying to stay atop your back wheel while on the ground. Just don’t bother with stoppies. Whatever score you get from them isn’t worth the precious time nor the risk of falling forward and crashing.

Crashing sends you back to the previous checkpoint, eating time and accumulating a penalty at the end of the level. Usually in these games, crashing before reaching the first checkpoint resets your time since you’re pretty much restarting the level. Not in Urban Trial Playground — you keep your crash count and your current time regardless of how many checkpoints you’ve passed. Since these games are all about getting as perfect a run as possible, you’re better off going into the menu and resetting whenever you crash. But levels don’t just cleanly reset; you need to wait through a several-second-long loading screen first, and at that point you risk the game crashing.

I’ve had Urban Trial Playground crash numerous times during loading screens, which is absolutely inexcusable. The game will also slow down during particularly busy sections of certain levels. The physics system also isn’t always consistent; crashing through a fence will either push the fence safely out of your trajectory, or land it smack-dab in the middle of your path. If the latter occurs, well, good luck getting over it without tipping over or your character just giving up and falling off. Your chosen biker may also just fall off of the bike even if you land a trick successfully. At least sometimes their body might stretch and contort in hilarious ways for a split-second — a joy that may be foiled by the game crashing soon after.

I want to rate Urban Trial Playground a little higher, because I found it to be an addictive little distraction, but there just isn’t a whole lot of content. And what is there is very poorly optimized, which can’t be excused when they expect you to pay $20 for it. If the devs patch the game to fix the crashing and tighten up the physics, I’d be willing to give the game another look. But as it is now, I’m going to have to give it a just-below average score. If this game goes on sale for around $5, then I’d say to give it a try if physics-based biking games are your thing. Otherwise, stick to one of the many other more polished and full-featured bike stunt games out there.

Review: Urban Trial Playground (Nintendo Switch)

4

Subpar

I want to rate Urban Trial Playground a little higher, because I found it to be an addictive little distraction, but there just isn’t a whole lot of content. And what is there is very poorly optimized, which can’t be excused when they expect you to pay $20 for it. If the devs patch the game to fix the crashing and tighten up the physics, I’d be willing to give the game another look. But as it is now, I’m going to have to give it a just-below average score. If this game goes on sale for around $5, then I’d say to give it a try if physics-based biking games are your thing. Otherwise, stick to one of the many other more polished and full-featured bike stunt games out there.

Overall Score
4

Tags

I've been playing games since the SNES/Genesis era. Some of my earliest memories are of Donkey Kong Country and Sonic 2. My favorite Nintendo generation is the N64. I played Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Banjo Kazooie, Kirby 64, and Paper Mario all the time growing up. Today I play a lot of JRPGs. My favorite turn-based RPGs are Shin Megami Tensei and Persona games, while my favorite action RPGs are Dark Souls and Kingdom Hearts.